Three West Virginia Cities and a College President Who Leads by Serving......

I was in Charleston, WV yesterday, Monday 9-17-18, getting interviewed by Cat Pleska for local public television.  She's a friend, and we met first at the delightful Capitol Market with an outdoor farmers' market and indoor upscale coffee shops, fish restaurant, butcher, bakeries, WV crafts, etc.  Very nice place, and our personal catch up and visit got me very loose for the formal interview, which went very well.
    In the evening I read with Ginny Savage Ayers at Writers Can Read at Empire Books in Huntington, and had dinner first with Reading series curators Eliot Parker and Carter Seaton along with people including Llewellyn and John McKernan, Cat Pleska, and Eddy Pendarvis  (hidden by moi in the photo).  She invited me to stay in her home overnight, and I got up at the crack of dawn and drove back up the road.
      And today it was two classes at Fairmont State University: thank you professors George and Myers for inviting me in!  Both groups of students were curious and insightful about what they had read of my work, and liked hearing the author's voice present the work.  They also willingly wrote exercises for me, and except for being wiped out after the long drive, I was just happy as a clam.

     In the evening I read at the Folklife Center with Rick Campbell and there were a ton of friends there, including Professor Jack Wills and Jack Hussey as well as Donna Long, editor of Kestrel magazine, and Dr. Angela Scher, head of the English department.  A former online student of mine, Sarah Blizzard Robinson was there too, as well as a number of students, some I met earlier in the day.
    It was a solid event, with the readings and then question and answer.
     Several people over these two days have complimented me as a teacher, which was gratifying.
     There was also the issue of the President of FSU.
      As I arrived, I was struggling in the parking lot with my bags and a box of books to sell.  A pleasant lady with long gray hair ad a nice purple blazer waved as if she knew me, and came toward me and said firmly, "I'll take that," and insisted on carrying the box, even though her shoes were higher that mine--elegant little black pointed heels, and I was wearing sandals, albeit patent leather sandals.  Anyhow, she said she worked there, and by the time we got in the elevator, she confessed she's the new president of  FSU, Dr. Mirta Martin.  I call that a service leader.
    These things strike me as very West Virginian: the president showing up and sitting through the reading as well as carrying my book box; the open mic after the readers in Huntington, and how he ages of readers ranged from late seventies to high school students.  The neighborhood where my airbnb is:  beautiful brand new colonials with wrap around porches, next to a trailer park with trailers in a variety of stages of freshness and deterioration.  West Virginians tend to live together. 

    Oh, and the graveyard up the street really does have my cousin's wife's family in it!  Oh, this reminds me of all the good things about my home state!